APPENDIX TO BOOK IV 12 страница

very moderate, a chair in a university is generally a better

establishment than a church benefice. The universities have, in this

case, the picking and chusing of their members from all the churchmen

of the country, who, in every country, constitute by far the most

numerous class of men of letters. Where church benefices, on the

contrary, are many of them very considerable, the church naturally

draws from the universities the greater part of their eminent men of

letters; who generally find some patron, who does himself honour by

procuring them church preferment. In the former situation, we are

likely to find the universities filled with the most eminent men of

letters that are to be found in the country. In the latter, we are

likely to find few eminent men among them, and those few among the

youngest members of the society, who are likely, too, to be drained

away from it, before they can have acquired experience and knowledge

enough to be of much use to it. It is observed by Mr. de Voltaire,

that father Porйe, a jesuit of no great eminence in the republic of

letters, was the only professor they had ever had in France, whose

works were worth the reading. In a country which has produced so many

eminent men of letters, it must appear somewhat singular, that scarce

one of them should have been a professor in a university. The famous

Cassendi was, in the beginning of his life, a professor in the

university of Aix. Upon the first dawning of his genius, it was

represented to him, that by going into the church he could easily find

a much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well as a better

situation for pursuing his studies; and he immediately followed the

advice. The observation of Mr. de Voltaire may be applied, I believe,

not only to France, but to all other Roman Catholic countries. We very

rarely find in any of them an eminent man of letters, who is a

professor in a university, except, perhaps, in the professions of law

and physic; professions from which the church is not so likely to draw

them. After the church of Rome, that of England is by far the richest

and best endowed church in Christendom. In England, accordingly, the

church is continually draining the universities of all their best and

ablest members; and an old college tutor who is known and

distinguished in Europe as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely to

be found there as in any Roman catholic country, In Geneva, on the

contrary, in the protestant cantons of Switzerland, in the protestant

countries of Germany, in Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark,

the most eminent men of letters whom those countries have produced,

have, not all indeed, but the far greater part of them, been

professors in universities. In those countries, the universities are

continually draining the church of all its most eminent men of

letters.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark, that, if we except the

poets, a few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part of

the other eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome, appear to

have been either public or private teachers; generally either of

philosophy or of rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true,

from the days of Lysias and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to

those of Plutarch and Epictetus, Suetonius, and Quintilian. To impose

upon any man the necessity of teaching, year after year, in any

particular branch of science seems in reality to be the most effectual

method for rendering him completely master of it himself. By being

obliged to go every year over the same ground, if he is good for any

thing, he necessarily becomes, in a few years, well acquainted with

every part of it, and if, upon any particular point, he should form

too hasty an opinion one year, when he comes, in the course of his

lectures to reconsider the same subject the year thereafter, he is

very likely to correct it. As to be a teacher of science is certainly

the natural employment of a mere man of letters; so is it likewise,

perhaps, the education which is most likely to render him a man of

solid learning and knowledge. The mediocrity of church benefices

naturally tends to draw the greater part of men of letters in the

country where it takes place, to the employment in which they can be

the most useful to the public, and at the same time to give them the

best education, perhaps, they are capable of receiving. It tends to

render their learning both as solid as possible, and as useful as

possible.

The revenue of every established church, such parts of it excepted as

may arise from particular lands or manors, is a branch, it ought to be

observed, of the general revenue of the state, which is thus diverted

to a purpose very different from the defence of the state. The tithe,

for example, is a real land tax, which puts it out of the power of

the proprietors of land to contribute so largely towards the defence

of the state as they otherwise might be able to do. The rent of land,

however, is, according to some, the sole fund; and, according to

others, the principal fund, from which, in all great monarchies, the

exigencies of the state must be ultimately supplied. The more of this

fund that is given to the church, the less, it is evident, can be

spared to the state. It may be laid down as a certain maxim, that all

other things being supposed equal, the richer the church, the poorer

must necessarily be, either the sovereign on the one hand, or the

people on the other; and, in all cases, the less able must the state

be to defend itself. In several protestant countries, particularly in

all the protestant cantons of Switzerland, the revenue which anciently

belonged to the Roman catholic church, the tithes and church lands,

has been found a fund sufficient, not only to afford competent

salaries to the established clergy, but to defray, with little or no

addition, all the other expenses of the state. The magistrates of the

powerful canton of Berne, in particular, have accumulated, out of the

savings from this fund, a very large sum, supposed to amount to

several millions; part or which is deposited in a public treasure, and

part is placed at interest in what are called the public funds of the

different indebted nations of Europe; chiefly in those of France and

Great Britain. What may be the amount of the whole expense which the

church, either of Berne, or of any other protestant canton, costs the

state, I do not pretend to know. By a very exact account it appears,

that, in 1755, the whole revenue of the clergy of the church of

Scotland, including their glebe or church lands, and the rent of their

manses or dwelling-houses, estimated according to a reasonable

valuation, amounted only to Ј68,514:1:5 1/12d. This very moderate

revenue affords a decent subsistence to nine hundred and fortyfour

ministers. The whole expense of the church, including what is

occasionally laid out for the building and reparation of churches, and

of the manses of ministers, cannot well be supposed to exceed eighty

or eighty-five thousand pounds a-year. The most opulent church in

Christendom does not maintain better the uniformity of faith, the

fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere

morals, in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed

church of Scotland. All the good effects, both civil and religious,

which an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced

by it as completely as by any other. The greater part of the

protestant churches of Switzerland, which, in general, are not better

endowed than the church of Scotland, produce those effects in a still

higher degree. In the greater part of the protestant cantons, there is

not a single person to be found, who does not profess himself to be of

the established church. If he professes himself to be of any other,

indeed, the law obliges him to leave the canton. But so severe, or,

rather, indeed, so oppressive a law, could never have been executed in

such free countries, had not the diligence of the clergy beforehand

converted to the established church the whole body of the people, with

the exception of, perhaps, a few individuals only. In some parts of

Switzerland, accordingly, where, from the accidental union of a

protestant and Roman catholic country, the conversion has not been so

complete, both religions are not only tolerated, but established by

law.

The proper performance of every service seems to require, that its pay

or recompence should be, as exactly as possible, proportioned to the

nature of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is

very apt to suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part

of those who are employed in it. If it is very much overpaid, it is

apt to suffer, perhaps still more, by their negligence and idleness. A

man of a large revenue, whatever may be his profession, thinks he

ought to live like other men of large revenues; and to spend a great

part of his time in festivity, in vanity, and in dissipation. But in a

clergyman, this train of life not only consumes the time which ought

to be employed in the duties of his function, but in the eyes of the

common people, destroys almost entirely that sanctity of character,

which can alone enable him to perform those duties with proper weight

and authority.

PART IV.

Of the Expense of supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign.

Over and above the expenses necessary for enabling the sovereign to

perform his several duties, a certain expense is requisite for the

support of his dignity. This expense varies, both with the different

periods of improvement, and with the different forms of government.

In an opulent and improved society, where all the different orders of

people are growing every day more expensive in their houses, in their

furniture, in their tables, in their dress, and in their equipage; it

cannot well be expected that the sovereign should alone hold out

against the fashion. He naturally, therefore, or rather necessarily,

becomes more expensive in all those different articles too. His

dignity even seems to require that he should become so.

As, in point of dignity, a monarch is more raised above his subjects

than the chief magistrate of any republic is ever supposed to be above

his fellow-citizens; so a greater expense is necessary for supporting

that higher dignity. We naturally expect more splendour in the court

of a king, than in the mansion-house of a doge or burgo-master.

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